Combat sports are generally thought to be an honorable athletic pursuit, with athletes honing themselves into perfect embodiments of their sport. Martial artists and boxers fight with honor under dazzling lights, with a wild ocean of cheers flowing over them on canvas spattered with the logos of multi-million-dollar enterprises.
However, there is another world of combat sports, where men trade arenas for abandoned parking garages, empty warehouses, and dark rooms with bloodstained floors, where the dignified rules of combat give way to biting, soccer kicks, and fingers in eyes.
This style of fighting goes by many names the world over, “vale tudo”, “shoot fighting”, “no holds barred” Whatever its name, two men enter a ring and aside from the use of weapons all is allowed.
In the age of the internet these are made available for the entire world to view by the organizations behind them like King of the streets, Strelka, and Wotore.
The fighters are typically members of European hooligan football clubs (sports fan clubs often involved in violence) or people from small martial arts gyms. The men who fight here often can fight nowhere else. Those with criminal records, open political dissidents, drug and steroid abusers.
These arenas often vary from fight to fight, presumably to be harder to track. They can be abandoned buildings, empty warehouses, alleyways, or floor hockey rinks.
Other promotions create semiprofessional venues, where a crude ring is constructed.
The availability of this content online sparks conversation about the ethical implications of sports like these .
“Well one of my initial thoughts is like ‘damn’ there’s actually a sport like that” said Ray Vanek-Johnson, a student at Landmark College.
“I feel that truly no holds barred fights should not be legal, now that I think about it” he went on to say.
Others think differently, however.
“I want to get my anger out get rid of all my aggressions in a proper way, where we all meet, and already agreed on what’s gonna happen and how we do it, fair and square,” said Simon Hendriksen, a Danish no holds barred fighter in an interview with “Takketalen” a Danish counterculture podcasting show.
The passion on both sides is understandable. One sees no holds barred as the equivalent of human cockfighting. an uncivilized celebration of violence, an exploitation of men born into poverty and violence to feed the bloodlust of an ever-growing audience of degenerates.
The other sees “no holds barred” competitions as an expression of the disfranchised. Where men who society no longer has a use for settling matters that would otherwise be decided by knifings on the street.
But regardless of your perspective, it must be acknowledged.
The brutality is here to stay.